


If You Needed Somebody

by pixymisa



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: #coulsonlives, M/M, PTSD, Pining, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fic, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 17:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixymisa/pseuds/pixymisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot of things have gone wrong for Steve. This time, he has Coulson to help him out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Needed Somebody

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/6565.html?thread=12232613#t12232613) at the [Avengers Kink meme](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com).

“...toes,” Steve tries to say, but the moment of impact cuts him off.

It’s like hitting a brick wall. He flies forward out of the seat, up and over the airship’s controls, toward the windshield and the icy water beyond it. He knows what it’s like to breathe it in, to feel it burn down into his lungs, to cough and choke and gasp only to get another lungful of the same. He fights against it, but he already knows what’s going to happen.

This isn’t even the worst part. No, that comes later.

He jerks awake, sweating and gasping and choking for air that his body says he doesn't have. The engines thrum close by, shaking the quinjet just enough to remind him that he’s in the air again. He knows that it has to be hot from the way he’s sweating, but he doesn’t feel it. He’s chilled down to his marrow.

It’s early in the morning, even for him, long before the sun has started to peek over the horizon. He unstraps himself, gets up from his seat, walks forward toward the cockpit and just breathes for a minute. It’s 2012, now. The Tesseract is safely in the hands of Thor and the Asgardians. He has a new team, a new CO, and a new mission waiting for him with the morning sun. What he wants to do is head over to his gym, to pound his fists into the sandbags until the rush of blood in his ears blots out all of the noise in his head. But he knows that today he doesn’t have that luxury.

He has work to do, instead.

Phil Coulson looks up from his station, his face creased with concern. “Bad dreams?” he asks.

Steve shakes his head, clears the cobwebs away. “No, it’s—” But he cuts himself off. Coulson has his own share of demons, of bad memories. Steve doesn’t need to put his own worries on him. “It’s nothing. How far out are we?”

Coulson glances to his monitor. “Just a few more minutes. We’re charting a discreet landing site as we speak.”

Steve just nods. Sometimes, he thinks it's strange that Phil Coulson is alive. After New York, after his death pulled them together, after they had grieved and had started to move on, Fury pulled back the curtain and, like the Wizard of Oz, revealed the truth.

It wasn't Steve's intention to work with S.H.I.E.L.D. again, after everything, but when Phil Coulson asked, he couldn't bring himself to say no.

"Once we land, things should move pretty quickly," Coulson continues.

"Are you sure you're up to this?" Steve asks.

Coulson just smiles back. "Are you?"

Right then, the pilot glances over her shoulder and shouts at them, “We got a site. Strap in!”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Steve replies.

***

The Howling Commandos were more of a hit and run operation. All one burst of frenetic energy, explosions, and weapons fire, and then it was over. This mission is different, strictly recon, but it has to do with Erskine’s formula and HYDRA. Steve’s the leading expert in that department, so when Phil Coulson asked— Well, to be honest, Steve would probably agree to just about anything Phil Coulson asked of him.

All they have to do is break in and get a sample of the formula. Sounds simple, but the missions that sound simple never are. They have no solid intel on the head of the organization or their ultimate goals, despite their best plant being undercover for three weeks already.

The pilot sets them down on the top of a warehouse. Not their target, but as close to it as they can get without pinging anyone's radar. "Pickup is in two hours," she tells them. Coulson nods crisply and gets to his feet, smoothing out the lines of his suit. Steve picks up his shield and follows. He’s flashy in his suit, bright colors standing out against the early morning light, while Coulson’s suit blends in.

Steve tries not to feel disappointed that Coulson isn’t wearing his flight suit instead.

There are a handful of guards making a circuit around the target building, but they’re easy enough to knock out. Steve gets three down, and by the time he turns to see how Coulson’s doing, he’s taken care of the other two. The picture of efficiency. His suit isn’t even wrinkled.

Their access point is off of the third floor fire escape. It’s home to a series of offices that span the length of the warehouse, looking out over the main part of the building. There’s a catwalk, too, that crosses the space and, hopefully, has some sort of unguarded access to the main level. Coulson quietly breaks into one of the offices and starts rifling through what he can find. Steve keeps watch for a few minutes, but once he’s sure that there isn’t a secret alarm going off somewhere, he strides out across the catwalk. He can’t make anything out, not in the dark, but he can see a lighted area below.

He heads back to the offices, and Coulson meets him halfway.

“Anything?” he asks.

Coulson shakes his head. “Invoices, payroll records, suppliers. Same information Agent Romanoff gave us. You?”

Steve jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Someone’s downstairs. What do you say we give them a visit?”

Coulson pulls his gun out, flicks the safety off. “Sure, I’m feeling sociable.”

Steve takes point, leads them down a narrow set of stairs. He keeps his shield up, in case anyone sees them and decides to open fire. Nothing happens. It’s almost too easy, he thinks to himself, right as he turns the corner into the lighted area. There it is, a single bare bulb hanging from the overhead duct, and it illuminates an open door. 

A blast of cool air hits him first, and his breath puffs out as steam. The door is solid metal, cold even through Steve’s gloves. The entire area hums like the refrigerator back at his apartment. Coulson comes up behind him, but doesn’t say anything. Steve gestures at him to stay put, to keep an eye out, and Coulson nods.

Someone’s expecting company.

Inside the door is much colder than outside. It’s a giant walk-in freezer, he realizes quickly, with row after row of empty shelves. He moves quietly between them, scanning for any signs of evidence, or life, or _anything_. He loses count of the shelves before he makes it to the back of the freezer, and it’s only then that he hears the door slam shut.

Anything that seems too easy generally is. It was obvious that this was some kind of trap, which is why Steve made Coulson stay outside. Something must have happened, must have distracted Coulson.

He bolts to the front of the freezer, to find Coulson sprawled on the floor, gun missing, face bleeding from a gash above his eyebrow. Coulson groans and gets to his feet slowly. “Sorry, Cap,” he says. “They got the drop on me.”

Steve gives him a once-over, decides that the gash isn’t too bad. “Looks like you got your bell rung,” he observes. “Are you dizzy? Nauseated?”

Coulson shakes his head. “I’m good, but I’m going to have one hell of a headache in the morning.”

So Steve focuses on the door. Sealed from the outside, opens to the outside, with the hinges also on the outside. He takes a few steps back, waves Coulson out of the way, and launches the shield. It flies forward, hits the door and ricochets up and back with no visible damage. He grabs it out of the air and winds up to try again, but Coulson holds up a hand.

“Captain, stop.”

Steve realizes that he’s breathing hard, harder than he should with this level of exertion, that he’s sweaty and shaky and cold. He’s not just breathing out the steam, now. His entire body is radiating it away.

Steve sits down. “This is familiar,” he hears himself say, almost casually.

Coulson crouches next to him, puts a hand on his shoulder. “Talk to me, Cap.”

"When I went down," Steve says. "I wasn't knocked out by the crash. It was the cold that got me." The sweat running down his back feels like ice. Coulson lays a hand on his shoulder, heavy and warm, and he has the urge to rip off his glove and tangle their fingers together. "They say that as you freeze, toward the end everything feels warm. I felt the cold the entire time."

"Captain—"

"Call me Steve? Please?" He looks up at him, then, into the warmth of Coulson's face, already reddened by the frigid air. He looks surprised, but Steve's not sure why. As he watches, Coulson draws his hand back. At first Steve wonders if he did something wrong, but then Coulson shrugs out of his suit jacket and drapes it around Steve's shoulders.

"In that case," Coulson says, "you have to call me Phil. Deal?"

"Deal," Steve agrees, pulling the jacket close around his shoulders. It smells just like Coulson — Phil, he corrects himself. And that makes warmth pool in his stomach. Then Phil drops into a crouch next to him, puts his arm over the jacket, and Steve has to remind himself that Phil Coulson isn't his to have. It doesn't mean anything; he’s just taking care of his Captain.

Steve wonders who Phil has, who takes care of him.

"Tell me about your cellist," Steve manages between his chattering teeth.

Coulson exhales next to him, his breath billowing out around them. "Who told you—?" he starts, and then cuts himself off. "Stark, of course. Naturally. That wasn't the great love that Tony Stark has convinced himself it was, and it is very much over." He sighs, and then he says, more to himself, "Wanda was really more of a fluke, anyway." Then Phil’s voice changes, and the arm around Steve’s shoulder tightens. "Captain, you need to keep talking. Tell me, tell me about Special Agent Carter."

"I loved Peggy," Steve says. It’s hard to talk, now, and he has to concentrate on where to put his tongue, how to move his lips to form the words. "But we weren't meant to be. All I had was a kiss and a promise to go dancing. That was all I ever had." He leans towards Phil, leans into the heat of him. "Bucky was the ladies' man. He would find these women, drag me along on these double dates. Dancing, the Stark Expo, whatever he could think of. The girls were all about Bucky, though. If I want to be honest, so was I."

Phil is very still next to him. "Do you mean...?"

And for once, Steve picks up on the implication without any prompting. "Didn't have the words, the awareness then, but yes. I loved him, the same way I loved Peggy.” It didn’t matter, anyway. That was never meant to be either, like Special Agent Carter.

Like a lot of things.

Phil’s talking to him again, saying something that sounds urgent, but his vision has gone gray and dark. The freezing air has the bite of brine to it, and the roaring in his ears sounds like rushing water. He tries to breathe, but he chokes instead. Something digs into his back, his arms, his chest, fingers of ice creeping through him. He’s vaguely aware that he’s laid out on his back, staring up into nothing.

He tries to blink, but his eyelids are frozen open.

All he sees is darkness.

***

“—talk about catastrophic failure, Coulson. That was probably the most pathetic trap of all time, and the two of you walked straight into it.”

“Budapest, Agent Romanoff. Would you like a repeat of it? I could have that arranged.” Phil. He sounds terse and worried.

Blindly, Steve reaches for him. His hand connects with something warm and solid, catches on it. He has to force his eyes open, to make them focus. It’s like right after the ice, waking alone and confused. But this time he’s on a stretcher, and he’s not alone. His hand is caught in Phil’s.

The lines on Phil’s face smooth out. “Feeling better?” he asks.

Steve doesn’t trust his voice, not yet, so he settles on just nodding. He’s not in the freezer anymore, that much is clear from the get-go, but it takes him a moment before he realizes that the area is swarming with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and medical personnel. They missed their pickup time, and someone up the chain of command decided to hell with the recon mission and extracted them.

“Did we get anything useful?” Steve croaks. “Anything at all?”

This time it’s Natasha who answers. “Don’t worry about it, Cap. I got a USB drive off one of the goons they had guarding the freezer. The recon wasn’t a total loss.”

Steve nods again. He hates this, feeling useless, feeling like a burden on everyone around him. He wants to get up off the stretcher and start walking, in any direction, but he’s not sure his legs will hold him.

“We should have someone take him home,” Natasha says. “He looks better, but he’s still white as a sheet.”

“I’ll take him,” Phil says.

“Coulson—” Natasha starts, and it sounds like a protest. But Phil cuts her off.

“Budapest,” he repeats. “Have someone bring a car around.”

She doesn’t protest again, but she doesn’t look too happy, either. And soon enough, some S.H.I.E.L.D. suit pulls up a car and both Phil and Natasha ease Steve into the passenger seat. It’s cold in the car, but Phil cranks up the heat and aims the vents at him. Steve’s still shivering, but the car is better than the stretcher.

Neither of them says anything until Phil’s taken him up the stairs to his apartment. Steve can tell he’s been holding his tongue on the rest of the building, but once inside his apartment, Phil takes stock and then says, “I thought they were exaggerating when they said your place was a shithole. No offense.”

Steve tries to muster a chuckle and fails. Now that he’s starting to warm up, he’s exhausted. He points in the direction of his bed, and Phil takes him by the arm and leads him there.

He’s tucked into bed, the radiator turned up and rattling, his surroundings warm and familiar. And Steve takes stock of Phil Coulson. The cut above his eye has been taped over, but he’s still missing his suit jacket. It’s probably back at the warehouse with the medical team, or it’s still in the freezer where he took it off.

Phil took off his jacket to keep him warm, even though Steve has the serum coursing through him, even though he survived seventy years frozen in a block of ice.

Phil did that. For him.

Phil moves from the radiator, finishes up whatever had him preoccupied on the other side of the room, and turns to leave. Steve calls after him, “Stay. Please?”

He hesitates, but turns back and comes closer.

Steve reaches out from under the blankets, grabs his hand again and gently pulls on it. “You’re shivering,” he tells him. Phil looks surprised. Figures that he didn’t notice himself. Too concerned about taking care of Steve to take care of himself.

Steve makes room in the bed and tugs on his hand again. This time Phil comes with it, comes in close to him, kicking off his shoes as he climbs into the bed.

Steve wraps his arms around Phil, holds him warm and safe. It’s not the same, it’s not quite what Phil did for him, but it’s a start. And maybe, Steve thinks sleepily, maybe this time he can be the one who gets to take care of Phil Coulson.


End file.
